Raffael Antonio Iglesias at RKG Artist-In-Residency from 26 of July to 15 of September, 2018.

The artist is using the gallery as a studio, also where he is living, a place where will be conceived and produced artwork concluding in a solo exhibition. This area, first starting as a functioning studio, will continue to exist in the new context of the “solito” show.

This residency is to collaborate with a practice that roots its potential in the nature of the individual, one who has been exposed to and active in a way of living and thinking, acting and reflecting, understanding and participating. The potential of the residency is eclectic. The inner nature is embraced, focused with the comfort zone facing the uncomfortable, in artistic practice as in life. The mediums involved are painting, drawing, sculpture, installation, mixed media, and martial arts.

Solito

Artist’s Statement:

Long Long ago in a galaxy far far away…

That’s how I began my brothers eulogy earlier this year. We spent most of our childhood obsessed with that movie.

I have been on a sojourn both as an artist and a person over the last few years and particularly the last few months. I have experienced loss of family, relationships and neglected my practice as an artist. This loss conjured up early childhood loss of family and displacement as a Salvadoran immigrant child and the complicated life that led me here to Toronto. This journey has led me to a resilience, and a power within that has facilitated and manifested into inner strength.

My work has always been a marriage of aesthetics boundaries, intersecting “high” and “low” art. This exhibition is an aesthetic extension of my previous work. My aesthetic approach is just part of who I am, like the relationship a samurai has with his sword.

This Work is about pain, and loss, but not how to wallow in it, but instead it is a testament to the journey of finding strength. Strength within the journey. The strength to find laughter, joy and live in the moment.